kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
by saunatonttu
Summary: Nightmares come to him like death, and Nami is the one to pick him up from this one. Slight LawNa. Rated T.


**A/N:** because Law needs some comfort.

* * *

**kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep**

* * *

Her touch was what roused him from his sleep.

Gentle as it was, his heart jumped and he woke with a violent start, eyes wide and breath escaping his throat in a choked gasp.

It was more the nightmare than her touch that had startled him so, but nevertheless he was quick to withdraw himself away from her, despite the pain that shot up his abdomen and the bullet wounds. He breathed hard, eyes more watery than he'd have liked in anyone's presence, and it took a while before he was able to say anything.

"Tra-guy?" Nami sounded astonished, and he sensed her sitting down the side of his makeshift bed.

He couldn't look at her.

The nightmare, it just...

_Lamie..._

His heart clenched somewhere inside his chest, and the old wound he had nursed felt like it had been ripped apart. Of course, he knew the reason, but it was so ridiculous for _that_ wound to...!

His hand had gone to his chest, feeling around the bandages before settling over the place he knew hid his heart.

The thumping beneath the skin didn't comfort him as much as the warmth of _her_ presence, however.

"Nami-ya," he managed to say, finally, after the lump in his throat had dissolved into nothing. "I... sorry, I overreacted." That had been the first decent amount of sleep he had had in a while, of course it'd be plagued by a nightmare.

He cursed himself for showing such a vulnerability to someone other than his crew members.

"Yeah," Nami agreed, but there was a tone in her voice that pulled Law's attention. Like she wanted to comfort him. Like she understood, somehow, without knowing his past.

"It was a nightmare, wasn't it?" she asked, straight-to-the-point, and her fingers reached for the bandages on his back, setting her hand flat against his back. "I was going to change these, since Chopper asked, but..." she trailed off.

"It's alright, I apologize for having you witness that," Law said quietly as he finally caught his breath. His hands still shook terribly, he noticed with irritation. The upside-down letters D-E-A-T-H seemed to glare at him even in the midst of pleasant not-quite-darkness. "I... it's a dream I haven't had in a long while."

He wasn't entirely sure what drove him to such honesty. Perhaps he trusted the Straw Hats. Perhaps he trusted _her, _because of her face. Her smile. There was something reassuring in her, something that put his heart at ease - when she had been firm about saving those kids, the feeling had first emerged.

Respect? He wasn't sure, but...

"I have had my share of those, too," Nami said tenderly and Law's back muscles began to relax under her touch as she carefully started peeling the bandages off his abdomen. He hadn't turned around, so it was awkward and she head to stay too close for his comfort, but for once his mind and body ached for the warmth of another.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Somehow, this wasn't what Law had expected, and he felt lost. Talk about his little sister...? The thought made his throat constrict, but he nodded slowly. His decision to trust Straw Hat with Doflamingo's case hadn't proved out to be wrong, so perhaps this would be alright too.

"It was a dream about my sister," he started, slowly, glad she couldn't see his face as she undressed his bandages. His hands trembled as he entwined his own fingers with one another. "She was younger than me. I was, too, when she died." He could feel her fingers pause, momentarily, and linger on his lower back.

"Amber lead syndrome." His lips curled down. "She died of it. My parents... _our_ parents... they were shot before dad could come help her with the disease." It was difficult to talk when all he had done in his life was keep his lips shut about it. Yet he bore the constant reminder that death was always present - the tattooed letters. And the tattoos of his countrymen, as well, as a remembrance.

"People with the syndrome were treated inhumanely. The spread of the disease was feared." Law closed his eyes. "No one tried to understand the cause, besides the doctors of my country. My parents were doctors, too."

"In the end, she didn't die of the syndrome. The hospital... it burned down." Nami had finished undressing his bandages, and was now cleansing the wounds on his back with something antiseptic. Law grit his teeth together, but a pained hiss escaped nonetheless.

"I wasn't there, and I survived but everyone else... my family, my friends, they all died."

He smiled ruefully. Regretfully, even. "I hid in the mountains of bodies, and eventually made it out of the country." He paused. "After that, there was Doflamingo, but that's not related." Mentioning Doflamingo's name brought a nasty feeling, and his heart felt like lead pulling him down. Cora-san... he, too, died, in the end.

Nami stayed silent for a while, her fingers traveling tentative routes on his back. "I have a sister, too," she murmured eventually. "Gods, she was the only person that kept me from completely hating myself all those years. I can't bear to imagine what it'd be like to lose her."

Neither of them said a word after that. Law stayed silent, finding comfort in the delicate patterns her finger painted on his back. N-O-J-I-K-O. Her sister's name, he supposed as he shuddered at her touch.

The mild darkness of the Straw Hats' infirmary brought him the kind of peace he hadn't found in a while - and the silence it had offered had been good too, given that Chopper ushered Luffy out every time the other tried to come bother Law. Thankful as he was, Law still felt the needles prickle at his old (mental) scars, especially now. He was good at nursing them, but maybe not so good at healing them.

"It's alright to move on, too, Tra-guy," Nami murmured, her hands suddenly draped around his middle, and Law went stiff as she hugged him from behind. "It's never easy. The nightmares can come at any time. But there's not dark without light." She made a sound. "Ugh, that sounded so cliche. But... like my mom used to say when she was alive... if you keep smiling, good things will happen. And you know what? She was right."

Her hair tickled at his back and neck and her breasts pressed against his upper back, luckily the least hurt part of him. Law half-opened his eyes, swallowing down the lump that had formed in the past few minutes. "Your mother sounds like she was a wise woman." He hadn't neglected to notice the past tense.

"She was," she agreed. "Tough, too." Her head leaned down and her forehead met the crook of his neck. He shuddered again as he turned around, gently shaking her off of him before sitting back on the bed on his knees and taking her hands in his.

"Thank you, Nami-ya," he said as she gave him a questioning look. "I'm not so young as to need someone to comfort me after a nightmare," he said wryly, "but I appreciate it nevertheless."

Usually, he would have felt irate. Perhaps the relief had taken the edge off from his 'moodiness', as some of the others had named his , he didn't care. He had her hands in his, her eyes on him, and a life worth more than just revenge. He smiled sincerely at her, for once. "I wish I could say the urge to kiss you is out of sheer gratefulness for all the help I've received from you."

Nami's lips stretched into a cat-like grin. "So you _are_ a guy, after all. Could have fooled me." She leaned close into his personal place. "That'll be two million belis, Tra-guy. Interest rate at 70%. Extra cheap for you."

Law withdrew, a smirk on his lips. "Extorting an emotionally disturbed person? What a cruel woman you are, Nami-ya."

Nami shrugged, her head swaying wild and free just like she herself was.

"More like a man with the emotion scale of a brick." She nudged at him. "Be careful, or you'll turn into Zoro. Wouldn't want _that_ to happen to someone like you."

Law actually laughed at that.


End file.
